I took my five-year-old son skiing over the holidays.
He’s new to the sport and still timid. But late one afternoon, he had a spurt of confidence. For the first time ever, he got off the lift and headed for one of the more advanced hills.
At the top of the run, he paused. He looked down the mountain, then up at me. Without a word, he took off.
I couldn’t believe it. There he was, gliding down the hill, carving turns like a pro. He seemed calm and composed — unlike his father. I rushed to take off my gloves, pull out my phone, and take a video of his adventure. But what I captured was blurry, and it missed most of the action.
“There has to be a better way,” I thought. And as I recently discovered, there is a better way — and it could potentially lead you to returns of 661%.
The Search for Adrenaline
My ski adventure with my son didn’t quite reach the level of an extreme sport.
But we’re among the more than 200 million people worldwide who enjoy recreational skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, and skateboarding.
Adventurers like us are constantly climbing up or skiing down mountains, searching for our next adrenaline-filled moment.
For the past twenty years, many of us have been using special cameras to capture these moments…
Including one made by a company that went from tiny startup to billion-dollar success story…
A Camera for Extreme Sports
In 2002, Nick Woodman took a surfing trip to Australia.
He was excited to capture intense, high-quality shots. But he couldn’t get close enough to the action. That’s when he had an idea for a new type of camera — one that could get close to the action without being bulky, fragile, or expensive.
Here’s what Woodman soon created:
He called it GoPro, and it caught on immediately. The company’s revenues soared, from zero, to $234 million in 2011, to $986 million in 2013.
By 2014, GoPro had gone from being a tiny startup to a publicly-traded company (Nasdaq: GPRO), with a market cap of $2.5 billion.
The company’s early investors — venture-capital funds like Riverwood Capital, Sageview Capital, and Steamboat Ventures — crushed it, with some of their returns hitting 661%.
In 2024, GoPros’ revenue topped $800 million, as consumers spent more than $6 billion on action/point-of-view (POV) cameras.
But now an emerging startup is taking the idea behind GoPro — and aiming to deliver something better.
Introducing Hightag: A Movie Set for Athletes
Hightag is a sports-tech startup. It’s built an automated system for capturing and delivering action-sports photos and videos.
Its system is unlike anything on the market, including GoPro, smartphones, or drones.
With these options, users (or the user’s friends) need to be the filmmaker. They need to hold or position the camera, capture the action, and hope they get great footage.
Hightag does things differently:
It partners with ski resorts, mountain-bike parks, and other sports destinations to install Hightag’s smart cameras throughout their facilities.
The cameras then film video clips automatically when one of Hightag’s users rides by — and instantly deliver the footage to the user’s account in the Hightag app. (To make this “magic” happen, users simply start a recording session in the app. This streams their location data to Hightag’s network. Cameras use the data to extract clips at the right moments and send them to the right user.)
This system eliminates all the hassles. Users simply subscribe, show up, and have fun.
It’s like setting up a movie set for athletes. As the company describes it, “POV cameras capture what athletes see. Hightag captures how athletes see themselves.”
A $600 Million+ Opportunity
Hightag’s system has substantial potential.
Globally, there are more than 6,000 ski resorts. And the company projects to earn $100,000 per year from each one it attracts as a customer. That’s $600 million in potential annual revenue.
Meanwhile, athletes like us will pay for memberships to use Hightag’s platform. From these memberships, the company projects to bring in another $1.2 million a year per resort.
With an opportunity of this scale, Hightag could soon find itself on a similar path as GoPro. And if it succeeds, its early investors could potentially earn similar returns.
The company is currently raising capital from investors like you. Its valuation is about $9 million, and the minimum investment is $100.
Should you consider investing? Let’s look at some pros and cons.
The Pros and Cons
First, let’s look at the “pros”:
Strong Existing Investors: Hightag is already backed by notable financial and strategic investors including Winrock International, The Venture Center, and the giant sports-retailer REI.
Accomplished Team: CEO Alex de le Fuente took a prior company from startup to unicorn (i.e., company worth at least $1 billion) in two years, while CTO Jonathan de la Fuente has tech experience at NASA, Bosch, and Aptiv.
Room to Scale: Hightag’s system was designed for recreational athletes. But upcoming features like coaching tools and a social-engagement option could expand this company’s reach.
As for “cons,” Hightag is a hardware business, so it’s capital intensive. If it has trouble raising adequate funds, its business could suffer. Furthermore, if it can’t convince enough users to try its system, its progress could stall.
These cons help explain why I’m not suggesting that you rush out and invest in it. Like any early-stage investment, this one requires substantial research!
But if you think Hightag could become the next GoPro — and potentially deliver returns of 661% — you can learn more on its funding page here »
Happy investing.
Please note: Crowdability has no relationship with any of the startups or investment platforms we write about. We're an independent provider of education and research on startups and alternative investments.
Best Regards,
Editor
Crowdability.com
